He reached out and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, little girl, but let’s get you out of here first. We have plenty of time to catch up.”
Harley helped her up off the concrete floor and wrapped her in a blanket Trevor brought in with them. Jade was content to disappear into the cocoon of soft wool as they walked slowly out of the warehouse to awaiting cars. The Steeles waved to her before they piled into a black Escalade with a uniformed driver. Beside it was her father’s minivan and the Jaguar, parked haphazardly as though Harley had rushed in to find her.
“Harley has to take you to the police station to get your statement and let you get checked out,” Carolyn said. “You call us later and let us know you’re okay.”
“Yes, Mama.” Carolyn kissed her on the cheek, and then let Arthur guide her over to the van.
As they pulled away, Harley helped Jade into his car, then came around his side to sit down beside her. Instead of starting the engine, he reached for her hand and held it tightly in his. “Before we go to the station, there’s something I need to say. Jade... I would’ve done anything to get you back.”
“Including paying my captors ten million dollars?” she asked. The sum seemed ridiculous, but her kidnappers were aiming high.
“In a heartbeat. I’d pay it again if I had to.”
Jade looked into his blue eyes, which were glassy with tears, and felt her chest tighten with emotion. “Don’t say that loud enough for those guys to hear you or they might try this again. Unless they’ve been...caught?” she asked.
Harley shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. The police were watching the bus station, but had to wait to move in until after those thugs texted your location to me. By then they were long gone, and the cops lost them in the maze of streets downtown. But we’ll find them. You can count on it.”
“Another exciting job for you to take on,” Jade said with a rueful smile.
“I think I’m going to leave most of that to the police. The last twelve hours have provided enough excitement to last me a lifetime,” Harley said. “The only rush I need is the feeling of you in my arms and the flutter of nerves in my stomach when I see you smile at me from across the room. I’d happily sit behind my desk and live a safe and secure life with you until I draw my last breath. Which hopefully will be well into my eighties or nineties.”
“You really mean that?”
“I sure do. Let me prove it.”
Harley reached across her to the glove compartment of the car and pulled out a small box that was instantly recognizable. He opened it and offered it to her, showcasing the sparking ring in its bed of navy velvet. It was beautiful. The center was a large princess-cut diamond set in platinum, and in the band were alternating round diamonds and dark blue sapphires. “As a navy vet, I thought perhaps some sapphires were appropriate.”
“When did you have time to get an engagement ring?” she asked. After everything that had happened, it was the last thing she’d expected.
“Before the party,” he said. “It was in my coat pocket the whole time. I was going to give it to you after we left the gala, but that didn’t really work out.”
She just stared at the ring, anxious to reach out and slip it on her finger, yet waiting on him to ask her the all-important question first.
“Jade Nolan...last night was the worst night of my life. I wanted to marry you before all this happened, but now I truly can’t imagine a day of my life without you. We’ve already lost over a decade and I don’t want to lose a minute more. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Jade smiled and leaned in to give him a kiss. There was no question this time that she would follow her heart. “Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “A million times, yes.”
Epilogue
Jade never thought she’d see the moment that both sets of her parents would be sitting together, enjoying a warm spring day on the top deck of the Steeles’ luxury yacht, the License to Drill. But here they were, along with Harley, all her brothers and Morgan, to celebrate their engagement.
After weeks of working through the details, taking DNA tests and verifying the results to everyone’s satisfaction, the families had come together in the first of many events. It was a bittersweet moment for Jade, to realize she would now be sharing her parents with Morgan, but seeing the tears in her mother Carolyn’s eyes was worth it.
The two families were so different, and yet they were united in their desire to share Morgan and Jade, and build a relationship together. After all, they would always be tied together by the strange twist of fate that swapped their babies that day.
Jade sipped her mimosa and watched everyone with a smile on her face. Her old brother, Dean, and her new brother Finn, were deep-sea fishing. Her mothers were sharing stories about what the girls were like as babies. Her fathers were discussing the different virtues of Scotch while they stood at the bar. It had turned out better than she ever expected it to.
There were still loose ends, but she knew those would be resolved in time. Her kidnappers would be found, and maybe they would be able to find out if the thugs were involved in the original switch. They still didn’t know for sure, although the conversation Jade had overheard in the van certainly made it sound like the two crimes were connected. She had relayed all the information she could remember, but knew there were details she’d forgotten in all the chaos. Despite his initial disinterest, Harley was still working that angle of the case, this time with the Steeles fully cooperating and partially funding the investigation.
It was hard to think about all that, though. It was much more pleasant to focus on her upcoming wedding to Harley, and her newly expanding family.
“I had the sweetest nurse at St. Francis,” she heard her mother Carolyn say. “I’ve been trying to remember her name since all this started and it’s been making me crazy. Did you have her? She was a redhead. Big smile. Very chatty.”
“I think I do remember her,” Patricia said. “I wasn’t having the greatest labor and she kept talking. I wanted more than anything for her to shut up and go away. I want to say it was something like Noreen? Tracy? Nadine?”
“Nancy?” Harley interjected.
“That’s it!” both women said together.
“Nancy. Thank you,” Carolyn said. “That’s been driving me mad.”
The conversation continued, but Harley made his way across the deck to where Jade was sitting. “How did you know the name?” she asked.
“I have the personnel files from the hospital. There was a nurse named Nancy working that day. A nurse who just so happened to kill herself less than a week after you and Morgan were swapped.”
Jade’s sharp intake of breath was barely audible over the ocean breeze and the sound of the music playing through the deck speakers. “Do you think she was involved?”
“It had to be an inside job.”
“I wish I remembered more from the night of the kidnapping. I feel like they said something important, but the whole night has blurred together. Maybe if we find more information, it will jog my memory.”
“Maybe so. Let’s see what we can find.”
Harley didn’t hesitate to pick up his phone and dial Isaiah. While it rang, he leaned in and kissed Jade hard enough to make her blush.
“Hey,” he said into the phone, as he pulled away and gave her a wink that promised more, and soon. “I need you to find out everything you can about a former St. Francis labor and delivery nurse named Nancy.”
* * *
Why were Jade and Morgan switched at birth?
How will Morgan adjust to the surprise of her life?
If you loved Jade and Harley, you’re not
going to want to miss Morgan’s story,
From Riches to Redemption,
by Andrea Laurence.
Available August 2019 wherever
&nbs
p; Harlequin Desire books are sold.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Star-Crossed Scandal by Kimberley Troutte.
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Star-Crossed Scandal
by Kimberley Troutte
One
Hot, dreamy sex.
That’s what the man stepping out of the limo exuded. And pulsing music. If Nicolas Medeiros was a song, he’d be a Brazilian beat, throbbing with dance, liquid fire and lyrics a girl couldn’t get out of her head.
Standing between her two brothers at the entrance to the Plunder Cove resort, Chloe Harper had a moment to drink Nicolas in while he talked on his cell phone and waited for the driver to bring his luggage out of the trunk. The long sleeves of his sharkskin-gray shirt were rolled up to reveal tanned, muscular forearms. His dark charcoal slacks accentuated his thin waist, and his suit jacket was casually slung over one shoulder. He was the adult version of the teen heartthrob Chloe Harper had fallen in love with a long time ago.
She fanned herself.
“Are you okay?” Jeff, her brother closest to her in age, wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“Hell, you, too?” Matt, her oldest brother, grumbled as he studied her. “This morning Julia had that same look on her face when I mentioned that Nicolas Medeiros was coming to town and staying at the resort. What’s the big deal?”
“He’s a big deal,” Chloe whispered.
Nicky M had been a pop star legend back in the day, and now he was a huge music producer who had discovered several of the biggest names on the charts. He was a legend! More than that, he was...her Nicky M. When she was eleven years old, Chloe had kissed his poster every night before she went to sleep. He’d been her savior when no one else cared. And now her crush was striding up the walk of her family’s resort with those dancing hips. And if they made a good enough impression, he’d sign a deal to do his next pop music reality show here.
As the resort’s activities director, she was the one who would be showing him around. Her family had given her the task of getting his name on the dotted line.
They’d be spending a lot of time together.
She made a strange noise at the back of her throat that sounded like a closed-off squeal.
“Oh, man. You’ve got it bad. Maybe we should give the job to someone else,” Matt teased.
“Don’t you dare!” she said way too loudly. Nicky M—correct that, Mr. Medeiros, her guest, her job, looked up from his call.
“Relax, Chloe,” Jeff said out of the corner of his mouth. “Dad wants the deal to work and so do I. Medeiros and his music production company are the next step in building the resort to its full glory. It’s up to you to convince him that he needs us.”
She shot Jeff a dirty look. “Is that supposed to make me relax?”
Matt laughed. “Just do your thing, sis. He’s a guy. He’ll love you.”
She bit her lip. Oh, she’d spent many lonely nights fantasizing about being loved by Nicky M, all right, but that’s not what her brother meant.
“Mr. Medeiros!” Jeff offered his hand. “Welcome to Casa Larga Resort at Plunder Cove. I’m Jeffrey Harper, the executive director of the resort and restaurant.”
Nicolas put his cell phone away and the two men shook hands.
“You remember Matt, your pilot from LA,” Jeff said. While Jeff ran the operations of the family’s resort empire, Matt pursued his passion of flying. He offered flights to important resort guests and volunteered his skills with locals in need.
“Of course. The flight was short and sweet. You are a very good pilot.” Nicolas shook hands with Matt, too.
Oh...that voice! His deep, melodious Brazilian Portuguese accent had played a part in quite a few of Chloe’s fantasies. She wished he’d take off those dark sunglasses. She longed to see his eyes.
Stop it! She warned herself. She shouldn’t be longing to see any of his body parts. Chloe had made a deal with herself to steer clear of men for a while and was determined to keep it. Looking was fine, but acting on her desires was out of the question.
“Dad sends his apologies for not meeting you himself. He’s not feeling well,” Jeff said poignantly.
That was an understatement. The last time Chloe had checked in on her father, he’d been sitting in his room with the shades drawn, fighting the downward spiral into his dark place. Her father had fought with untreated depression for decades. She’d dealt with the dangerous effects of it as a small child, before the stress led to her parents’ divorce, but then she’d left the family estate with her mother. And she hadn’t understood her dad’s mental illness until she saw it up close. If he didn’t come out of it soon, Chloe would disobey his wishes and bring a psychiatrist into the home, the rumor mill be damned. RW Harper was a powerful man and few people bucked his orders, but she was worried about him and would do whatever it took to help him.
“That is too bad. I was hoping to talk to the great RW Harper. Plus, I have questions about the contract he sent me,” Nicolas said.
“He’ll make time for that during your stay,” Jeff said smoothly. “This is Chloe, the resort’s activities director. She’ll take care of all of your needs for the week.”
Jeff meant business needs. So why did her gaze take a sudden roam across Nicolas’s body. Broad shoulders, narrow waist... She forced her eyes back up to his face. He was watching her.
Her cheeks were on fire. A trickle of sweat ran down her back.
She stretched her hand out and was beyond relieved it wasn’t shaking. “Welcome to Casa Larga.”
“Chloe. I like that name.” He lifted his dark glasses, and his gray-blue eyes locked on to hers and melted her insides. She was seriously going to pass out if she didn’t figure out how to breathe around the man.
He held her hand for several long beats. A Brazilian custom or her own hand refusing to let go? Chloe removed her hand but couldn’t unlock her gaze from his. She used to wonder what had happened to a boy to make his gray eyes project such a soulful expression. The man before her still had the look, but now it was mixed with mature comprehension, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. His eyebrow lifted as if he could see the desperate desire pulsing inside her.
Oh, God, did he know what she was thinking?
Because she suddenly wanted to break all her rules for him.
Matt chuckled beside her. “Hell, guess some things are a bigger deal than I thought. I�
�d better go give my wife some lovin’. See you all later.” Heading toward his motorcycle, he gave Chloe a thumbs-up.
Surely Matt didn’t think their guest was attracted to her. Nicolas Medeiros dated supermodels and pop stars. Although she was an heiress to the great Harper fortune and a celebrity yoga teacher in her own right, she was no supermodel. She rarely wore makeup and believed in enhancing the inner natural beauty of a person through spiritual awakening. Nicolas, on the other hand, dated women who had professional makeup artists on staff.
“Right this way, Mr. Medeiros.” Jeff motioned for Nicolas to step into the entryway.
Nicolas held back and gave her a look that heated her skin. “Ladies first.”
Walking ahead of him, she wondered where his gaze was—on the low dip in her blouse, exposing her back, on her butt, or on the ten-foot crystal chandelier overhead?
Jeff guided their guest to the foyer, where building plans were spread out across the marble table. “The restaurant will officially open to the public at the end of the week. However, the staff is eager to serve you now. They need the practice.”
“Complimentary, of course,” Chloe said softly and then stepped back to let Jeff do his thing.
Nicolas’s cell phone buzzed. He checked the text and shook his head before returning his attention back to them. “Sorry. Work.”
She hoped to help him unplug from work during his stay. Nicolas was a big music producer, but everyone deserved a little downtime. It was her personal mission as an activities director and yoga teacher to help people learn how to live in the moment. To relax.
“Would you mind telling us about your show? It’ll help me gauge what sorts of activities to prepare for the contestants,” Chloe said.
“If we choose the Harper’s resort for the show,” Nicolas said. “There are three properties under consideration.”
From Mistake to Millions Page 15